“In the psychology of aesthetics, there is a name for the moment between the anxiety of confronting something new and the satisfying click of understanding it. It is called an 'aesthetic aha.” — Derek Thompson Copy Share Image
“It is not merely the feeling that something is familiar. It is one step beyond that. It is something new, challenging, or surprising that opens a door into a feeling of comfort, meaning, or familiarity. It is called an aesthetic… — Derek Thompson Copy Share Image
“Posting dramatic charts or funny pictures is good and giving people smart reasons to believe what they already think is great.” — Derek Thompson Copy Share Image
“The trick is learning to frame your new ideas as tweaks of old ideas, to mix a little fluency with a little disfluency—to make… — Derek Thompson Copy Share Image
“Picking a few hits requires a tolerance for many bad ideas, mediocre ideas, and even good ideas cursed with bad timing. Above all, it… — Derek Thompson Copy Share Image
“Cultural products will spread faster and wider when everybody can see what everybody else is doing. It suggests that the future of many hit-making… — Derek Thompson Copy Share Image
“Imitating recent successes is a game that everybody knows how to play. But seeing the next big thing before anybody else sees it is… — Derek Thompson Copy Share Image
“The most important element in a global cascade isn’t magically viral elements or mystical influencers. Rather it is about finding a group of people… — Derek Thompson Copy Share Image
“His lullaby was an instant success not because it was incomparably original, but because it offered a familiar melody in an original setting.” — Derek Thompson Copy Share Image
“Some consumers buy products not because they are ‘better” in any way, but simply because they are popular. What they’re buying is not just… — Derek Thompson Copy Share Image
“It is the simplest phrase you can imagine,” Favreau said, “three monosyllabic words that people say to each other every day.” But the speech… — Derek Thompson Copy Share Image
“The line from psychologists is, if you’ve seen it before, it hasn’t killed you yet.” — Derek Thompson Copy Share Image
“People have all day to talk about what makes them ordinary. It turns out that they want to share what makes them weird.” — Derek Thompson Copy Share Image
“The mark of a good book is that you're happy to come home to it. The mark of a great book is that you… — Derek Thompson Copy Share Image
